


Support Materia: A User's Catalogue

by bookoftheazuresky



Series: Mastered Materia: A Collector's Catalogue [2]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Ensemble Cast, Gen, Magic, Materia, Status Effects
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-03-07 17:39:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13439859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookoftheazuresky/pseuds/bookoftheazuresky
Summary: Blue materia for support.Mini fic for the main characters of FFVII, one for each materia.





	1. All: Aeris

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks goes out to meadowlarked for the beta!

All, Aeris thinks, is like a lens. Not a convex lens to focus light more tightly, but a concave one to spread it further.

The first time she’d tried it had been disorienting—her attention yanked in three directions at once as Tifa and Cloud moved on their own paths and she stood still. The second had been worse—her mind had been split between each of four darting, buzzing wasps before Bolt crashed down.

For all that, it’s a passive thing, content with the attention she gives it. It’s as if there’s nothing inside until she links it with another materia. How…lonely, Aeris thinks, to reflect only what others do, content to merely wait for its destined partner.

For how long had that been her, waiting for news of Zack while making the same circuits of the slums, growing flowers that would never see the sky? She needs to find her own spark now, and not just be a tool to empower others.


	2. Elemental: Barret

Monsters were built for different environments. Plant-based monsters withered in fire. Bombs ran shrieking from ice. Thunder could pick birds out of the air

You could, and Barret had, buy artificial status and magic bombs, single-use spells like Fire or Sleep bound up in a disposable casing. If you didn’t have access to a monster’s weakness in materia form, it was a good idea to stock up on items that did the same job. They were even common and cheap, since a lot of people didn’t want or need to invest in materia, but...they were also made by Shinra. Barret wasn’t giving Shinra anything more than he had to.

It was just another example of all the roots Shinra had sent digging down for profit, slowly choking out all the old stores by offering easier and cheaper substitutes. Then, once they had gotten rid of the competition, prices would rise. Barret had seen it with electricity, and he’d seen it with water.

Hopefully, Shinra would fall before it could finish eating the materia industry too. With the way monsters had been popping up, people would need it.


	3. Added Effect: Tifa

So efficient, Tifa marveled, leaving another Shinra punk hacking up blood blackened by poison. She elbowed another one in the gut and felt the faint ghost of Bio trace over her blow. No need to pull back and hope for time to cast, no drain on her energy, no sticky green glop to pick around as they proceeded forward.

Just immediate results.

She could get to like this.


	4. MP Absorb: Yuffie

MP was known as chi in Wutai: energy that you couldn’t see but that existed in every living thing. Wutai had always had arts that used it in ways beyond feeding it into materia—the last legacy of the Ancients, her father had told her proudly.

When she’d gotten a little older, Yuffie had closed her mouth on questions like _but then why couldn’t we beat Shinra_? The expression her father made when she’d asked—only once—had cut her to the quick.

Part of the answer was that it took long years to master chi, to build up your strength to use it properly. Yuffie was well-trained for her age, could escape like a wraith and climb like a black chocobo, but her talents didn’t lie in raw power.

But what you didn’t have, you might _steal_.


	5. HP Absorb: Vincent

Vincent had always approved of HP Absorb material; it’s a wonder for a Turk in the field to be able to bleed vitality off of their kills. Every little bit added to the percentage of mission success: every Turk’s first and highest love.

But it’s a little different now. Even though Yuffie is the only one he’s outright caught saying it, the word “vampire” is always near whenever he is present. Even though Vincent isn’t human any longer, to be called such things always brings a pause, before he remembers how deservedly such titles hang on his shoulders.

For all that, he’s not sure he wants to _play in to_ the stereotype. It’s just asking to find his sleeping bag stuffed with garlic by a certain princess lacking in survival instincts.


	6. Added Cut: Cloud

Cloud could vaguely remember from Shinra training that spellcasting was a function of spirit and physical attacks a function of the body. It was for that reason that SOLDIERS often divided units between spell and melee specialists, assigning roles so that there was no jerky transition between combat forms. Only First Class could switch easily, and even then most preferred one over the other.

Cloud didn’t mind either type, but he was still working on those damn transitions. He’d found the most success in pairing attack and support materia in his blade, and healing materia in his bangle. Even so, it was jarring every time he jerked his concentration away to parry.

He needed to get _better_.


	7. MP Turbo: Red XIII

According to Bugenhagen, spell strength classification was a useful metaphor that was nevertheless completely incorrect. The “lowest spell” that a materia contained was basically its startup cost, the least amount of MP you could feed to it to get any result at all. Spell levels after that were a result of the materia’s growth pattern, the natural stopping places as energy and experience pooled to make the next leap in a materia’s lifespan. Spell levels were, quite literally, an ingrained habit.

And in a century or two, that might mean something for Nanaki. Right now, it still took a paired materia to push past the limits his brain and the materia both insisted it had.


	8. Steal as Well: Yuffie

It’s probably a comment on her little side trip to Wutai and the ensuing annoyance that Yuffie gets the blue materia that lets her cast spells _and_ steal at the same time. Yuffie doesn’t care, though—it’s _awesome_ and she’s going to put it to _very_ good use.


	9. Magic Counter: Cid

Reno’s electro-mag rod crackled as he lunged in closer to Cid, forcing the pilot to spin his spear to keep the lanky Turk at bay. This sunken aircraft was quite possibly the worst terrain for Cid’s fighting style— dim, claustrophobic, thick with the scent of rust and mold, and tense with the possibility that the ocean would finally find its way inside to kill them all.

Reno ignored it all, goggles pulled down and teeth bared as he feinted. It was a step too close, and Cid knew it as the redhead hooked his ankle and yanked him off his feet. The nightstick came down in a swift arc and cracked Cid’s skull against the floor, filling his mouth with the taste of blood.

Cid’s hands came down in the puddles on the floor, and his bangle crackled with Bolt3, no thought needed, just the alignment between the hit and the _strike_ of lightning. Electricity crawled the walls, tasting metal and water, its first friends.

Reno choked, staggered back, then gathered himself and snarled at Cid. Cid growled back, getting his knees underneath him and spitting out blood. This wasn’t over, not by a long shot.


	10. Final Attack: Barrett

Barret caught Cloud’s upper arm, barely keeping the swordsman from falling over. Cloud may have been short as hell, but he was pure mako-engineered muscle, and he weighed a ton. Now his fair skin was covered in oozing cuts and near-black bruises, and he smelled like acid and chlorophyll from the Battle Square monsters. ‘The Brave Do Not Fear The Grave.’

The only thing worse than watching Cloud batter his way through match after match, the announcer’s cheerful voice proclaiming what penalty he would take on this round, was _not_ watching. There was always the chance that this time would be when the safeguards failed and Cloud needed rescuing. It was the same reason that Vincent always kept vigil—only a marksman would be able to kill the monsters in time if the worst happened.

Cloud’s dead weight abruptly decreased as the ex-Turk grabbed his other arm. Cloud blinked dizzily at him, eyes reflecting the blooming light of Vincent’s Full Cure.

“Congratulations!” chirped a woman from far too close. Even Vincent jerked at the sound. Barret scowled down at the too-chipper announcer. She offered a small black box, smile fixed and blank. “You’ve won the special prize for completing the battle, compliments of the Battle Square.” She didn’t flinch as Barret relieved her of it, just bowed and went back the way she came.

A deep blue materia shone in a nest of black velvet. “Sure this was worth it, Cloud?” Barret asked.

“We need all the help we can get,” Cloud rasped, getting his feet underneath him.


	11. Quadra Magic: Tifa

The blue chocobo picked its way across the shoals with an easy grace, its strong-taloned feet holding onto rock outcroppings just below the surface. Tifa let it pick its path, reins loose in her grip as she focused on keeping her seat. The sandy spit of land they were headed for bore the marks of chocobo habitation, footprints and blue feathers in shades from sky to navy scattered across the narrow beaches. Large snail shells, broken apart to show nacreous insides, showed why they had claimed the island. Chocobos liked gysahl-family greens best to eat, but in the wild they caught small animals and monsters to supplement their diet, and blue chocobos had a taste for shellfish.

The bird tilted its head, considering the last jump. Tifa nudged it forward, and it obliged, leaping across the gap in a spray of saltwater. Tifa wiped it off her face as the chocobo trotted up the beach to the stone backbone of the island, a gray knife poking up through the waves. At the far end, two or three minutes on chocobo-back, was a tower of the same gray stone, covered in moss. A dark gap beckoned from its base.

“Come on,” Tifa said, turning a blue head in that direction. “Let’s go explore.”


	12. Sneak Attack: Cait Sith

Cait Sith was made for industrial espionage. It didn’t take much of a logical leap to figure out the purpose of a remote controlled robot that could send back information. It’s a walking, talking camera, agile enough to get into all sorts of places, dexterous enough to open all sorts of things.

And Reeve has never been one for a stand-up fight, not even when he was young. Better to come at someone unexpectedly, to catch them off-guard.

At some point, Reeve’s entire position at Shinra had become a platform from which to launch the biggest sneak attack of all. He’s not sure when, but he _is_ sure it will come soon.


	13. Counter

Vincent finds it in the very depths of the Northern Cave, where vines curl over the walls in the green light, growing in the illumination reflecting up from the depths of the planet. Materia has grown here over time, creating veins in the rocks, making up the fine-grained crystal sand that crunches under his feet. Most of the pieces are too small to contain anything, at best only reflecting the light and redoubling it.

Not all, though.

Vincent picks up the nearly clear bubble, half-encased in a sheath of stone, and flakes away the protective layer with his claws before tucking it into his pack.

It’s much too late now to find out what this one does. If they live, Vincent will worry about it later.


End file.
